Bio Hazard

I drive a hybrid. So does my wife. You’re welcome. We also bring our own bags to the grocery store and our own cups to Starbucks. And we even talk about composting someday, which has no carbon footprint and is much less gross than actual composting.

My point is we try to be environmentally friendly; do our small part to make the world a better place for our kids. Which is ironic since having kids has got to be the most aggressively hostile thing you can do to the environment. I could compost my own feces for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t make up for the ecological havoc wrought by my two children.First, of course, there is all the stuff. The diapers, the wipes, the toys entombed in 15 layers of plastic, the food sold in individually wrapped single servings. And even if you manage to avoid some of these mass-marketed consumer traps there are some things you can’t avoid — even if you shop at Whole Foods. Like art. TB is only in preschool 6 hours a week and we’re already amassing a collection of these:

First of all, I’m not even sure why a teacher would send a kid home with this. Why not just call and tell me you don’t take your job seriously? This is not the kind of thing you send home to parents. This is the kind of thing the janitor should find hidden in a locked cabinet at the back of the class underneath an empty flask of whiskey after the teacher has been fired for passing out during recess.

The earth is going to be destroyed by discarded preschooler art — half of it probably celebrating Earth Day. All the stuff notwithstanding, there is also the issue of *them*. Little ids barreling through life with no self-awareness about their environmental impact. My daughter throws food. My son never misses an opportunity to turn on a faucet. Our house is a suburban landfill of quarter-eaten snack food and forgotten toys. They absolutely must have something, right until the moment they get it, and then they need to open something else. Kids may look like this:

But from a carbon footprint perspective, don’t fool yourself, they are this:

Driving our kids around in a hybrid is like putting energy efficient windows on your coal-powered whale blubber factoryAs the world population streaks past eight billion, we parents need to admit it; raising kids may be a selfless job but *having* them? Jerk move.